Thereâ€™s a stat that some 4 million Americans have had encounters with extra-terrestrials. Whatâ€™s even more interesting, disturbing, pathetic, or however else you want to put it, 30% of the American population claims to have been abducted by aliens. Regardless if that means weâ€™re living in a country with a larger number of crazies than I previously believed, or, there are actually aliens that like committing a felony, we humans have longed been fascinated by the possibility of having an ET out there. It seems that these sort of tales picked up during the 20th Century with incidents like Roswell and the abduction of Barney and Betty Hill on September 19, 1961. Sometimes these accounts get made into movies, Fire in the Sky is an example. But whatâ€™s even more interesting is many well known people have come forward and shared their experiences with strange alien encounters that the normal person has. Hereâ€™s 16 celebrities who believe in aliens, some of them may be wacky, but some may actually surprise you.

16. Stephen Hawking

stephen hawking 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

The smartest dude on Earth right now was not abducted or claimed to have seen UFOs. Heâ€™s on the list because he actually believes in the existence of aliens, making one of the few scientists that have publicly done so. However, he believes that theyâ€™re not those lovable, Reeseâ€™s Pieces addicts. In April of 2010, Hawking warned us to avoid any contact from beings from another planet because theyâ€™re most likely going to be hostile.

15. Miyuki Hatoyama

Miyuki Hatoyamao 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of Japanâ€™s Prime Minster Yukio Hatoyama, claimed to have not only been abducted by aliens, but has also been to Venus, you know that really hot planet next door to Earth, and even knew Tom Cruise in a previous life. Maybe her abduction missed with her brain just a tad, or she could just be nuts.

14. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, governor of the Buddhist republic of Kalmykia in Russia and president of the World Chess Federation, claimed that he was abducted from his Moscow apartment in 1997. He even claims to have three witnesses, his driver, assistant and a minister. Of course the story could end there, but apparently, the Russians arenâ€™t taking this so lightly. Government officials wanted President Dmitry Medvedev to interrogate Ilyumzhinov to make sure he hadnâ€™t leaked any secrets to his alien hosts.

13. Dan Aykroyd

dan aykroyd 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Aykroyd has been an avid believer in aliens for years. Heâ€™s a member of the UFO research group MUFON and spoke rather candidly about the subject in the DVD Dan Aykroyd Unplugged. However, he took his beliefs mainstream on the April 30, 2010 edition of Larry King Live. Aykroyd went on a rant about how aliens are breaking the law, which is Title 18 Section 1201, and reads â€œWhoever unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward or otherwise any person â€¦â€ is subject to imprisonment. He goes on to state that aliens donâ€™t want anything to do with us because weâ€™re crazy and violent.

12. John Lennon

john lennon 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

While on top of the roof of Lennonâ€™s penthouse in Manhattan in 1974, the former Beatles and his girlfriend May Pang, saw a flying saucer at a very close range. It was so close that he could clearly describe the object. Lennon was overly excited and called everyone from the cops, who reportedly had several other calls about the same thing that night, to local newspapers. He even mentioned the incident in the song â€œNobody Told Meâ€ with the line â€œThereâ€™s UFOâ€™s over New York and I ainâ€™t too surprisedâ€. Besides witnessing a UFO, Lennon was visited by aliens and given an egg-shaped object weeks before his death.

11. David Bowie

David bowie 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Absolutely no shocker here. Bowie has made a career in music by creating alien personaâ€™s or songs that cover aliens, space, flying saucers, etc, such as Ziggy Stardust. Itâ€™s been said that Bowie witnessed numerous flying saucers as a kid. He even said that he visited a UFO repair shop in Missouri. Bowie even went on TV and said that he preferred flying in a saucer than a conventional airplane.

10. Gordon Cooper

gordon cooper 550x410 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Gordon Cooper was an astronaut that made two trips into space on the Mercury 9 in 1963 and Gemini 5 in 1965, but his belief in UFOs go as back as 1951 when he spotted them while flying a F-86 jet over Germany. He even went as far as writing a letter to the United Nations in 1978 asking for a program to research the phenomenon.

9. Jackie Gleason and Richard Nixon

gleason nixon 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Jackie Gleason was fascinated by the topic and itâ€™s been said that his buddy Richard Nixon helped confirm the existence of aliens. The story, as told by Gleasonâ€™s second wife Beverly, is that after Gleason and Nixon played some golf, the President took Gleason to Homestead Air Force Base where he saw dead extra-terrestrials. Not sure if Nixon was leaking secrets that only the most obsessed conspiracy theorists could only dream of, or he was being a jerk and pulled a joke on his friend.

8. Mick Jagger

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The Rolling Stonesâ€™ front-man has claimed to have seen at least two UFOs in his life. The first while camping in Glastonbury and the other during the Stonesâ€™ infamous 1969 Altamont concert in California. Author Michael Luckman even claims that Jagger had a UFO detector installed in his home but only went off when Jagger wasnâ€™t present.

7. Muhammad Ali

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The Greatest has stated that heâ€™s witnessed 16 UFOs during his lifetime. Ali has also said that â€œIf you look into the sky in the early morning you see them playing tag between the stars.â€

6. Jimmy Carter

jimmy carter 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Former President Jimmy Carter claimed that he had seen a UFO in his home state of Georgia while Governor. Carter even mentioned the sighting while on the campaign trail. Heck, even promised to expose the governmentâ€™s UFO secrets if elected President. Of course, this never happened.

5. Walter Cronkite

walter cronkite 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Walter Cronkiteâ€™s claim, being the â€œmost trusted man in Americaâ€ as he is, should be taken a bit more seriously than other famous people. Cronkiteâ€™s experience came in the 1950â€²s, when a small group of reporters were invited to an island in the Pacific to observe the Air Forceâ€™s new missile. As the missile launched, a disc-shaped object hovered in the sky and fired a blue beam that hit the missile and a security guard and his dog, which froze them all in place. A while later a colonel explained to the group that they had just been part of a project to test peopleâ€™s reactions to UFOs, since new technology can be shocking and thatâ€™s why there had been all those UFO reports. Obviously the reporters couldnâ€™t report about this incident, but that didnâ€™t matter because Cronkite didnâ€™t believe any of it for a second.

4. Sammy Hagar

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Recently, while plugging his new memoir, the former Van Hagar singer stated that he had been abducted by aliens. Hereâ€™s what he said about his experience: â€œIt was a download situation. This was long before computers or any kind of wireless. There werenâ€™t even wireless telephones. Looking back now, it was like, â€˜F**k, they downloaded something into me!â€™ Or they uploaded something from my brain, like an experiment. â€˜See what this guy knows.â€™â€ While Hagar is fully aware that the media will make him out to be crazy, he is 100% sure that this took place, so he doesnâ€™t care what anyone thinks.

3. William Shatner

william shatner 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

Naturally, Captain James T. Kirk would have an alien experience. According to Dennis William Hauck, who wrote Shatnerâ€™s unauthorized and critical biography called Captain Quirk, Shatner was abducted to teach him a lesson. It turns out that Shatner was unpleasant, arrogant and disliked by many of his Star Trek cast-mates. While riding a motorcycle through the Mojave desert, he got separated with his friends and his bike broke down. Shatner walked for miles in an attempt to find a gas station, but when he found one, there was a flying saucer hovering above it. Things get blurry, but Hauck believes Shatner was taken aboard and became a better person after the encounter. Is it a coincidence that Shatner released his album Transformed Man shortly after-wards?

2. Ronald Reagan

reagan and gorbachev 16 Famous People Who Believe In Aliens

While Governor of California, Ronald Reagan claimed to have seen a UFO on two separate occasions. The first happened while he and Nancy were driving to actor William Holdenâ€™s house for a party. At the party he told Lucille Ball and Steve Allen that he had seen a UFO. The second occurrence took place while on a private plane. Reagan claims to have seen a glowing object behind the plane so he had the pilot follow it until it sped off. Reagan eventually became obsessed with aliens, often mentioning them in speeches, even while President. He even delivered a speech to the UN that said the US and USSR might be forced to become allies if Earth ever faced an alien invasion, this statement was also confirmed by Mikhail Gorbachev.

1. Elvis Presley

The King seemed to always have UFOs around him during his lifetime. Strange lights were seen in the sky when Elvis Presley was born and continued to do so throughout his life, he was even said to have been visited by space travelers when he was eight, who gave the boy a glimpse of his future, which oddly enough included his white jumpsuit. Itâ€™s even believed that there was a UFO hovering over the mourners at Graceland when he was buried. Some have gone as far to hypothesize that Elvis was an alien himself and was actually looking down on the mourners.